Topband: Our Friend Bob Garrett, K3UL

[Eric Gustafson]

Jeff,

Thanks very much for the Bob Garrett posting.

It reminds me (and probably many others) why we enjoy this hobby
so much.  Ham radio (particularly the CW or keyboard modes)
permits us to communicate with many kinds of people.  Much of the
time the communication is uncontaminated by any knowledge of the
economic status, race, age, sex, disability status, etc. that is
not volunteered by either party.  I believe this is the main
aspect of the hobby that attracted me to it when I was a kid
(after the playing with antennas part anyhow ;-).  Ham radio
permitted me to communicate with adults on an adult basis.
Pretty heady stuff for a 12 year old.

I was operating the Aberdeen Proving Ground MARS station for
Veteran's Day 1970 as a special event station.  We were issuing
nice certifictes to anyone who worked us.  This operation while
enjoyable was unremarkable until a few weeks after the event when
I got a letter relating to the CW operation (me).

The letter was from a friend of one of the stations that I had
worked.  I just barely remembered the contact.  Conditions had
been marginal and a small amount of effort was required to carry
the contact through.  The op on the other end had been excellent
though so ultimately everything worked out.  So I was a bit
puzzled as to why this merited such effusive thanks.  Then I got
down to the bottom of the page where I found out that the contact
had special meaning to the other op and he really wanted badly to
make it.  And he was absolutely thrilled to get the certificate.

It turns out that he was not only blind but also deaf and mute as
well.  Amateur radio CW was virtually his only real time
communications connection to the outside world.  He was copying
CW by resting his fingers on a bare speaker cone and feeling the
vibrations.  I was amazed to discover this as he had been
flawless at about 25 WPM from me during the contact.  At the
actual time of the contact, I had no awareness of any disability
of any kind on the other end.

Sorry for the off reflector charter bandwidth.  But I just
couldn't stop myself this time...

73, Eric  N7CL


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